It's been awhile since I've posted . . . life has gotten in my way. I spent last week in New Orleans with my daughter and son-in-law, so I didn't teach my Bible study class last Sunday. When I returned this week, the large marker board in the classroom was covered with notes and a second marker board was beside it with one statement: "And Margie's answer is . . . " I wasn't even sure what the question was until class members began to arrive. The question was about how we see God in control.
The class I teach is made up mostly of people in the 50s and early 60s (my age group). We have couples and singles, and we share the struggles of being a part of the sandwich generation.
Most of us are parents. Some have teenagers still at home; others have kids in college, starting careers and/or marriages, and starting families. We have some whose kids have gone through divorces, marital separations, job losses, bankruptcy, home foreclosures . . . The hardest thing a parent ever figures out how to do (at least in my opinion) is to parent adult children!
Then, many of us are dealing with aging parents. We've faced catastrophic illnesses, deaths, finding in-home care, the loss of memories, and dealing with hospice or long-term hospitalization. We've struggled with the emotional baggage that comes from trying to take care of those who spent so much of their lives taking care of us.
And finally, most of us are in positions at work in which we are covered up with responsibilities and high expectations. We work more hours than we should, use weekends to catch up, and feel guilty that we're so stretched that we don't feel we're doing anything well.
Sound familiar? It's a constant theme with our class members in prayer requests as we all try to handle this stage of our lives. In the midst of all that, when our lives feel so out of control, the class members were challenged to recognize how God is in control of their lives. I guess it's no wonder that they tried to pass the buck and let me answer the question.
As one wise person told me recently, "I see how God is in control of my life most clearly when I look at my past. It's there that I can see how God has orchestrated my path in a way that makes sense now, even if it didn't make sense at the time!"
That's a good reminder of how God is at work in our lives, even when we're too overwhelmed to recognize how He's at work in our lives. For, "faith is confidence in what we hope for and assurance about what we do not see" (Heb. 11:1).
Blessings.
Margie Williamson
Community Manager
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